This post was prompted by the discussion over in Greensboro about neighborhood schools vs. the forced integration of schools. The reality is that we, society, cannot force people to like each
other, want to live with each other, etc. Human nature is such that we
want to be around people like us. Unfortunately due to the history of
race relations in this country we tend to equate "people like us" with
race. That’s simply not the case for many people. "People like us"
has a heck of a lot more to do with economics than race.
Before we moved to Winston-Salem in 04 we lived in a very
economically homogenous neighborhood in Northern Virginia. While there
was a fairly diverse population in terms of race you could safely
assume that the vast majority of the folks in our neighborhood fell
into the same tax bracket. And since the population was racially
diverse there was never a discussion of the need to bus kids for some
sort of racial quota.
Another interesting stat about Northern Virginia: over 70% of
working adults have a bachelors degree, one of the highest rates in the
country. Cost of living there is very expensive, so if you want to
live within 30 miles of Washington, DC you need to be able to afford a
$300,000+ house. The farther you get away from the city the lower the
average household income and the lower the percentage of folks with a
college degree, and voila, the more kids on free lunch programs, etc.
And the closer you get to the city the more you see an urban atmosphere
with impoverished communities juxtaposed with affluent communities, and
not a lot in between.
Long story short, we moved from an area where people still paid
attention to race, but really the number one factor was money and
everyone knew it. To put it bluntly, no one worried too much if a
black or Mexican or whatever-race family moved in, but they’d have a
conniption if a bunch of day-laborers moved into a house on the street.
When we moved here we spent the majority of our energy finding a
neighborhood in the school districts that were ranked well in terms of
test scores (as much as I hate standardized tests, that’s really the
only barometer you have when you’re from out of town). Honestly the
pickings were fairly slim so it was easy to narrow our search to a
couple of neighborhoods. Guess what? Most of the neighborhoods we
looked at were economically homogenous and to a large extent were
racially homogenous as well. Did we choose to exclude ourselves from a
racially diverse neighborhood? Nope. We picked the place that worked
best for us in terms of getting our kids into good schools. (We see most of our neighbors so infrequently I couldn’t tell you if I
had martians living down the street.)
But my sense is that around here it is still a big deal if a family of another race moves in next door. That’s too bad because the reality is that a middle class white family is likely to have more in common with a middle class black family than a rich or poor white family. We don’t like to talk about it, but we all know that there’s a certain level of stress when a "have" is talking to a "have not" or in the case of the rich a "have" is talking to a "has more."
When we’re around people that lead the same kind of lives we lead it’s easier to know what to talk about. If you’re middle class it might be the costs of car repairs, having to dip into savings to buy the new washer/dryer, the kids’ moronic baseball coaches, etc. If you’re rich that’s a different conversation (comparing your new cars that you get every year or two, comparing housekeepers, etc.) and if you’re poor you might be lucky to have to the time to have a conversation at all.
I’m not denying that there are different experiences for folks based on race; I’ve seen black friends treated differently than me in stores, have a hard time getting a cab, etc., but the reality is that as people of the younger generations, those born after legal racial segragation, get older the import of race will begin to dwindle and the import of economics will be recognized for what it is. When that happens I think we’ll face some very serious issues dealing with the poor (the truly disenfrachised) in this country.
